Adams of LNS honored for service to lab

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Richard Adams, special assistant to the directorate in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), has received the School of Science Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his 36 years of work with seven LNS directors.

He is the fifth person so honored. The previous awardees are Dr. Frederic Eppling, former associate director of LNS, in 1993; former Provost Mark Wrighton in 1995; Maija Ahlquist of the Center for Cancer Research; and former Dean Robert Birgeneau in 2000.

"I have had the privilege and pleasure to serve under all but the first LNS director. There aren't many jobs where one could have worked with so many great physicists, three of whom received the Nobel Prize," said Mr. Adams, who retired on December 21.

Mr. Adams started working in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science as a technician in the High Energy Physics Group of Professors Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall in 1965. He joined the headquarters office in 1971, became personnel officer in 1978, and was pro-moted in 1989 to special assistant, responsible for personnel, general services and the supervision of the LNS headquarters office.

"Dick Adams's encyclopedic knowledge of MIT, his ability to find imaginative solutions to problems, his good sense of humor and his wisdom have been invaluable to me in my first six months as director of LNS," said Professor June L. Matthews, director of LNS since July 2000.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 24, 2001.